ESL announces education partnership with University of York

News -
28 Jun 2017

ESL and the University of York have announced a new collaboration to make teaching and research for
esports a reality.

The partnership will allow the University of
York to offer UK-based teaching and research tailored to the growing
esports industry.

The collaboration includes Digital Creativity Labs, an £18
million research initiative focusing on the
convergence of digital games and interactive media and one of the biggest games
research labs in the world, the University of York's Department of Theatre,
Film and Television and the Department of Computer Science.

The
collaboration has three key areas of focus:

Teaching

ESL will hold regular masterclasses with
University of York students, including workshops and taster days. The
University of York will align its teaching offerings with
the needs of the industry, while also offering BSc & MSc dissertations on
esports. ESL and the university are also co-designing an elective module on esports content
production as a third year, credit-bearing module, aiming to launch in autumn
2018.

Research

Alongside a substantial investment by DC
Labs in research into future innovations in the esports industry, the
collaboration will also see PhD internships take place through the Intelligent Games
and Game Intelligence (IGGI) PhD programme and Digital Creativity Labs.

ESL internships will provide hands-on experience for
outstanding undergraduate students, while industry placements will be available
for selected PhD students.

“We’re
incredibly excited to be entering into a partnership with the University of
York to help develop fresh new esports talent,” said James Dean, MD of ESL UK. “We’ve always been committed to creating opportunities for
more people to enter the industry and now, with the help of the University of
York, we’re looking forward to being able to help make sure the future is even
brighter and better than it is now.”

Peter Cowling, Director of the Digital Creativity Labs at York and Professor of Computer Science, added: "High
growth rates have seen games overtake film in terms of market size. Esports
shows similarly spectacular growth. Our collaboration with ESL provides us with
an exceptional opportunity to pioneer highly relevant, impact-driven research
in this area."